


Moon Without the Stars

by joudama



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21934366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joudama/pseuds/joudama
Summary: A “path not taken” AU.  Hannibal will always forgive Will. But what if he had been able to forgive him far sooner than he did?Hannibal stands at a crossroads, and has to make a choice - he will forgive Will, that much he knows, but will that be enough?
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Moon Without the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this a while back, and finally decided to polish it up a bit and post. I don’t write AUs that often, but one type I love are "path not taken" ideas.
> 
> The title comes from a song from in a rhythm game called "Deemo." The song, "Moon Without the Stars," has lyrics that seemed so fitting for the mood I wanted for this scene: "What's a heartbeat with a heartache?/What's a hurricane without the rain?/What's the moon without the stars? That's how it feels when we're apart."
> 
> I'm using something from the book canon, which is that Hannibal Lecter has two independent streams of thought, something he was diagnosed with as a child, and part of why he's so blooming intelligent - he almost quite literally has two brains working away in that twisted noggin of his. I am, however, giving it a TV!Hannibal twist by using something Mads Mikkelsen said about how he's playing Dr. Lecter - as if he were actually Satan, a demonic force for evil in the world. So my Hannibal head canon is that one of his streams of thought is Hannibal Lecter the human, and the other is the demonic fallen angel.

"You were supposed to leave."

Will doesn't turn around before he starts speaking, but Hannibal could see the way his shoulders slump, and the pain in his voice, before he does.

He had no idea where he stood with Will now. He had been so certain, so many times, and been wrong what felt like every single time.

It was as exhilarating as it was painful.

He could hear the whispers in his mind - his dual trains of thought, something he'd had since he was a child, since standing at the crossroads and _screaming_ after Mischa. One said to kill Will Graham now for his betrayals.

But the other. _The other._ The other had always been so weak where Will was concerned; always wanting to grasp at Will, from the moment they had met, with greedy, needful hands...and that had been silent and hurt after Will's set himself on the path of Hannibal's downfall. Silent until _now._

 _This was the best he could offer you_ , that voice whispered. _He warned you, just as you warned Hobbs. He wanted you to escape._

_**From a snare that he put around your neck.**_

_But isn't that what makes him so fascinating? That he is so conflicted, even now. That while he tries to capture you in one hand, he tries to let you go with the other. And now, you have given him Abigail._

_**And we can take it away. Just like he tried to take your freedom.**_

_One hand, the other. He tried to take my freedom...but then tried to give you a way free. He gave you a way to slip his snare._

_**He is not what you think he is.**_

_Has he ever been? And isn't that why I covet him so? We covet what we see everyday and he is like me. Dual nature, dual streams of thought, always fighting against each other, and even he doesn't know which will win._

_**He didn't kill Freddie Lounds.**_

_But he_ did _kill Randall Tier._

The two streams of thought argued in his mind, in the span of only a few moments. 

_**You gave him the chance to leave with you. You gave him the chance to confess. He chose Jack Crawford, not you.**_

_But that was before he saw Abigail. And he wanted me to leave. In the end, he warned me to go._

_**Will you change your mind now? When what is to be done with him has already been decided?**_

_That was before. Can you say that Will might not change his mind, right now? That he already hasn't?_

_We are at a crossroads_ , the stream of thought whispered. _Which way will he go?_

_**Which way will we?**_

The gun slipped from Will's hand.

The knife fell from Hannibal's as well.

\--

_"Rien pour moi à présent, merci."_

The words were soft and hesitant, barely even audible, but the words to the flight attendant offering champagne and juice were the first words Will had spoken since they had boarded the plane.

Abigail jumped on it. "You speak French, Will? 

Will lifted his head back from where he had turned after speaking to stare out the window at the blue skies. He said nothing for a long while, before finally opening his mouth and letting out a faint, "I do speak some Cajun French, but it's pretty broken. Just what I picked up from the old timers, when I was a kid in the bayou, and around New Orleans." His lips quirked briefly into something that was almost a smile, as self-deprecating as it was, before something behind his eyes seemed to curl back up in pain, and he lapsed back into silence.

"I don't speak much French yet," Abigail said, an embarrassed look on her face. She paused, but never took her eyes off Will, then tried to engage him again. "Hannibal has been teaching me, since...well, I'd taken Spanish in school, so the French and Italian he's been teaching me aren't that hard, but I'm still a beginner."

"I have every faith that you will be fluent in a very short time," Hannibal said, turning in his seat across from them to give her a proud smile. "You will learn quickly with exposure. And I speak from experience."

"How many languages do you speak?" Will asked, then looked a little surprised that he had even asked.

It was good to hear Will speaking and in some way engaged. He had been so quiet and withdrawn for most of their escape; running on shock and autopilot. He had thought it best to give Will space for a while, and so had sat Will and Abigail together, and him in the seat across the aisle.

"Only seven fluently: my native Lithuanian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and German. I also learnt a bit of Japanese from my aunt, but she always despaired for my accent, and most of it has been a victim of language attrition." A thoughtful look crossed his face. "Perhaps while you are learning French or Italian, I shall struggle along again in my study of Japanese. We shall all muddle together."

Abigail smiled, a tiny, fragile thing, but Will turned back to stare out the window.

\--

_Will is sleeping now._

_I watch him, from the corner of my eyes, as he doses. I can also see the speculative glances from Abigail, but for now, I will pay them no mind._

_If one were to ask me my preferences, I perhaps would not answer in one of the neat, tidy little ways that we often use to label ourselves. Those tidy little ways are often perhaps too tidy, and restrict us because they become ways we define ourselves. We force ourselves to adhere to these definitions society places on us, and both deny and rebuke urges, no matter how fleeting or how true, that may run counter to these imposed confinements._

_Will Graham is many things to me. I can not define them in simple, neat labels any more than I could define myself with them. Will is...a singular being in my life. He understands me, even though I do not fully understand him._

_But I will. I had thought his transformation within his chrysalis was complete many times before now, yet each time, I was wrong. What Will can be still twists about, half-formed within its fragile chrysalis. I had thought that even if I were to whisper to that half-formed, inchoate shape, even if I were to try to cradle that delicate chrysalis is my hands, I could not speed its transformation._

_But now I see that even Will does not know what he will transform into, nor even where his loyalties lie. That what I had first hoped he would become, and then what I feared he had always been, were both incorrect imagos that I had projected onto him._

_I can not predict him, and thus he is endlessly fascinating to me._

_I do not know myself what form my relationship with Will Graham will take. Whatever it is, it also slumbers, half-formed with fitful dreams, within a chrysalis._

_I only know that I want Will Graham._

_For what and in what way, I do not know and I do not presume to know._

_A butterfly can only come forth from its chrysalis when it is ready to be reborn into the world, and this is perhaps no different. I only know in the broadest of contours and roughest of sketches that I want him, close, in my life, and the details are merely fine touches to be added._

_But make no mistake. Whatever comes, whatever shape he takes when he sheds the cocoon he is developping in and what he is finally is made clear, what we are to each other will be an unbreakable connection. It will be a tie that will bind us for the rest of our lives._

_For good, or ill._

_We will either destroy each other, or one will pyrrhicly destroy the other and part of themselves in the process, or we will become so tied to the other that it is an unshakable support._

_I will let him sleep. I will let the sleeping chrysalis be._

_I am a patient man, and neither will sleep forever._

**Author's Note:**

> This might be the end, it might not. I have more bits written, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
